Very Berry Dead Makes a Big Impression at Big Storm Performance Company

Carolyn Jerz lights up the stage from her first entrance, almost literally. Dressed in bright colors and elaborately coiffed, with her face made up so pale white that it glows (think Björk meets Catherine O’Hara in Beetlejuice), Jerz imbues the role of spiritualist and yoga enthusiast Marigold with an outsider energy that is otherworldly, larger than life, but never cold or alienating. Marigold, it seems, never walks when she can dance or float, and would rather drop dramatically into a yoga pose than sit in a chair. Jerz’s bursts of physical humor, highly mannered speech patterns and comic timing keep a fresh, zany but earthy presence in the show’s darker moments. The chemistry between Sánchez and Jerz as the two “family weirdos” is a highlight as well, as the cowboy and the witch girl seem to perpetually butt heads. —Broadway World (review)